Prison for a State Chemist Who Faked Drug Evidence

BOSTON — They were called “Dookhan defendants,” and there were thousands of them.

They had been arrested or sentenced on drug charges based on evidence or testimony supplied by Annie Dookhan, an ambitious state chemist who processed drug samples confiscated from suspects at triple the speed of her colleagues. Officials say her ambition led her to perpetrate one of the most far-reaching frauds in Massachusetts’s history.

Prosecutors say Ms. Dookhan declared drug samples positive that she had not bothered to test, tampered with evidence, forged signatures and lied about her credentials to enhance her standing in court as an expert witness. In all, her actions may have tainted more than 40,000 drug samples involving thousands of defendants.

Ms. Dookhan was caught in 2011 after forging a colleague’s initials. On Friday, she pleaded guilty to 27 counts, including obstruction of justice, perjury and tampering with evidence, and was sentenced to three to five years in prison, plus two years’ probation. Her lawyer had sought one year; prosecutors had asked for five to seven years.

When she arrived in court on Friday, Ms. Dookhan, 35, first showed little emotion, staring straight ahead with her face set. But she appeared to become upset as she answered the judge’s questions with “Yes, Your Honor,” or “No, Your Honor,” her voice halting and weak. After pleading guilty, Ms. Dookhan was immediately taken into custody.

Her lawyer, Nicholas A. Gordon, has said his client was eager to prove her worth, to be the best chemist on staff. But the consequences of her actions “have been nothing short of catastrophic,” Justice Carol S. Ball of Superior Court in Suffolk wrote recently.

“Innocent persons were incarcerated,” she said. “Guilty persons have been released to further endanger the public, millions and millions of public dollars are being expended to deal with the chaos Ms. Dookhan created, and the integrity of the criminal justice system has been shaken to the core.”

The case against Ms. Dookhan took a long time to come together.

An audit of her work in 2010 found that she was processing cases at an unusually fast clip. But auditors found nothing wrong. In June 2011, however, Ms. Dookhan was caught forging a colleague’s initials and was suspended. Still, though she had been removed from her lab duties, she continued to testify as an expert witness. She was not placed on administrative leave until February 2012.

In August 2012, she admitted she had mishandled samples. As a police report described it: “She became sad and a slight tear came to her eye and she stated, ‘I screwed up big time. I messed up. I messed up bad. It’s my fault. I don’t want the lab to get in trouble.’ ”

She was first charged that fall with skirting proper lab procedures, prompting district attorneys around the state to set up war rooms to go through their cases and decide how to handle those in which she had been involved.

“It’s created essentially a whole new county’s worth of cases that have to be handled with the existing resources of our office,” said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk County district attorney, Daniel F. Conley.

Photo

Annie Dookhan in December.Credit
Pool photo by Steven Senne

In September, defendants started to be released, and in December, Ms. Dookhan was indicted by a grand jury on 27 charges, including evidence tampering and obstruction of justice.

David Meier, a Boston defense lawyer hired by Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, to determine the scope of the scandal, said the cases of as many as 40,323 people might have been tainted during Ms. Dookhan’s nine-year tenure.

More than 300 people have been released. One of the most recent was Jamell Spurill, who had been jailed on drug charges. He was quickly rearrested for possession of a stolen gun. When he was picked up, prosecutors say, he told the police: “I just got out thanks to Annie Dookhan. I love that lady.”

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Perhaps the most notorious case involved a man named Donta Hood, who was serving time last fall for dealing cocaine. When he turned out to have been a Dookhan defendant, he was set free. A few months after his release, he shot a man during a drug dispute, and now Mr. Hood, 23, is back behind bars, this time on charges of first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

At least 50 Dookhan defendants who were released have been rearrested. At least two were murdered when they were let out. Thousands of other cases are in limbo.

When she was indicted, Ms. Dookhan pleaded not guilty. In negotiations with prosecutors, her lawyers learned last month that if she changed her plea to guilty, Justice Ball would sentence her to between three and five years in prison — less than the five to seven sought by prosecutors.

In arguing for a longer sentence, Attorney General Martha Coakley wrote to the court: “The total costs to rectify Dookhan’s actions have climbed into the millions with no end in sight, and the financial aspect does not even address the loss of liberty of affected individuals, the significant deleterious effect on the safety of the public or the breakdown of public trust in the system.”

But Justice Ball, in a decision last month, wrote that Ms. Dookhan “presents as a tragic and broken person who has been undone by her own ambition.”

While Ms. Dookhan heads to prison, the state is still reeling from the fallout of her actions. The Hinton State Laboratory in Jamaica Plain where she worked has been shut. Several people, including the state’s public health commissioner, have lost their jobs. The state inspector general is still conducting his investigation into the scandal.

The state legislature has set aside $30 million for local prosecutors to reinvestigate cases and see if they can charge the suspects based on other evidence.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Martin W. Healy, chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Bar Association. “The total costs could reach $100 million over the years,” he said. “No one comprehended that this would snowball the way it has.”

A version of this article appears in print on November 23, 2013, on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Prison for a State Chemist Who Faked Drug Evidence. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe